Interdivisional migration differentials by education for groups of selected SMSA’S, United States, 1960

An attempt is made to investigate the educational differentials between various types of interdivisional migrants and nonmigrants in selected Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA’s) of the United States. The analysis is carried out for four color-sex groups standardized for age. We have been able to identify three distinct patterns of migration differentials by education, that is, the J-shaped, the U-shaped, and the reverse J -shaped distributions. The tendency for migrants to be better educated than nonmigrants, by and large, has received support from the data we have analyzed. Wherever this tendency has not been confirmed, the main factors which, we believe, have influenced the differentials are the proportion of foreign-born whites, the geographic location of the places of origin and destination, and the differences in levels of educational attainment.